


until i loved you

by 180714jaehyun



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Crushes, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 08:58:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13784094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/180714jaehyun/pseuds/180714jaehyun
Summary: Yukhei has a crush on the cute boy in his algebra class who doodles pictures of outer space instead of paying attention to the teacher's lectures.





	until i loved you

**Author's Note:**

> this very easily could be the worst thing i've ever written but i'm not entirely sure bc it's almost 4am. i just rly wanted to write a short thing for jungwoo/lucas bc they're super cute
> 
> also wasn't sure which tag to use so i kinda just went wild
> 
> title is a dope song by people watching people!!!

Yukhei never has a crush on anyone. It’s a defining part of his personality; he’s immune to love.

But then he meets Jungwoo, and— _okay_.

Jungwoo had just moved to their school a week ago and Yukhei’s stomach has been doing these weird somersaults every time he sees him walk into his algebra class, but Yukhei hasn’t had the courage to approach him. And for the record, Yukhei does _not_ have a crush on Jungwoo. Yukhei just wants to be friends with him.

Jungwoo’s very awkward. Their first conversation is terrible. Doyoung and Kun have pressured Yukhei into introducing himself to Jungwoo at lunchtime, having convinced him that nothing bad will happen, and their encouragement has gotten Yukhei amazingly fired up.

“Hey, I’m Yukhei! I’ve seen you around in my algebra class and I just figured I should introduce myself.”

Jungwoo chews slowly, like a horse. “You’re in my algebra class?” he asks, eyes wide.

Yukhei’s smile flattens slightly. “Yeah.”

“I swear I’ve never seen you before,” Jungwoo says.

Yukhei’s smile is a flat line now. He returns back to headquarters only to have Doyoung and Kun howl with laughter when Yukhei explains what happened.

“Cut me some slack,” Yukhei whines, frowning down at the apple on his plate. “I’m not good at talking to strangers.”

“Yeah, we can tell,” Doyoung quips. “Thank god you didn’t try flirting. Lord knows what kind of train wreck that would be.”

Yukhei is offended. He throws the aforementioned apple at Doyoung and it ends up splattering on the floor and the three of them get kicked out of the cafeteria for not respecting school property, or something stupid like that. Since when is an apple considered school property? Whatever. Yukhei catches Jungwoo watching them as they get escorted out of the room by the cafeteria monitor.

Despite having such a horrifying conversation, Jungwoo sits next to Yukhei during their algebra class the next day. He’s wearing a big, red sweater, and he appears to be in a wonderful mood.

“You’re Yukhei, right?” Jungwoo asks.

Yukhei’s smile takes up half of his face.

And it kind of snowballs from there. The two of them sit at the back of the room every day and pay as little attention to the teacher as possible. Jungwoo spends most of their classes doodling stars and swirls in Yukhei’s notebook and Yukhei pretends to be annoyed at the boy’s lack of interest towards algebra.

In Yukhei’s own defense, he still attempts to pay at least a small amount of attention to the teacher’s lectures. One day halfway through the term, however, he realizes that the teacher’s deep in an example about determinants, which they learned about a week ago, but he has absolutely no idea what a determinant is, and the exam is tomorrow. He’s been too busy admiring Jungwoo, who is currently sketching a tiny Saturn that has a smiley face in the corner of Yukhei’s notebook. Jungwoo sticks his tongue out of the corner of his mouth when he’s focused on his drawings and it’s endearing.

Yukhei’s grades suffer slightly. His mom is disappointed when he comes home with an exam that has a giant “C” on the top of it. She sets up a meeting with his teacher to strategize ideas for getting Yukhei back on track. Yukhei feels a little guilty.

“Hey,” Yukhei whispers one day in the middle of their lecture. Jungwoo jolts awake from his nap and looks over at Yukhei in a dazed silence. “My grades are really bad in this class,” Yukhei continues.

Jungwoo laughs. The studious girl seated on the other side of him glares over at the two of them in annoyance.

“Me too,” Jungwoo says, seeming unaffected by their mutual failure.

“We should study together outside of class,” Yukhei suggests.

“Oh!” Jungwoo nods excitedly. “Good idea!”

The teacher stops writing on the board and turns around to face the back of the class. He raises his eyebrows at Yukhei and Jungwoo until they redirect their attentions back to the chalkboard, and then he resumes the lecture.

Yukhei doesn’t know why he thought studying with Jungwoo would be a good idea. If Jungwoo distracts him in class, there’s no way that he could study with the boy outside of school and not be distracted. This is proven on the very first day that they meet up. They’re in the library after school and they’ve got their textbooks open and their notes are splayed across the giant circular desk in front of them, but they’re staring at a YouTube video of a baby duckling falling asleep that Jungwoo had pulled up on his laptop not even five minutes into their study session.

A few more barely-passed exams later and Yukhei realizes that he might have a crush on Jungwoo.

The realization hits him like a ton of bricks falling from the sky. Yukhei’s under a pile of blankets on his bed one night, desperately trying to fall asleep because it’s _three in the morning_ and his brain won’t stop thinking about Jungwoo’s smile and Jungwoo’s cute nose and Jungwoo’s eyes and—

You get the point.

Yukhei has a crush on Jungwoo. He’s never had a crush on anyone in his entire life, but here he is, completely gone for an awkward boy who hates algebra and is obsessed with drawing outer space.

Yukhei, of course, does nothing about this new development. Well, he doesn’t do nothing. He attempts to convince himself that he’s just confused and that he can’t possibly have a crush on his own platonic friend, and he thinks he does a pretty good job of this.

It’s a Friday night and Jungwoo’s coming over to Yukhei’s house in a few minutes for a sleepover. Yukhei cleans his room nicely. His little brother strolls into his room, uninvited, and teases him for cleaning his room for the first time “since dinosaurs walked the earth” and Yukhei pushes him. It’s not a hard push, but his brother falls to the ground dramatically and cries and tattles to their parents, screaming about how Yukhei is a bully and the meanest brother ever.

The sleepover gets postponed on account of Yukhei getting grounded for a week. C’est la vie.

Eventually, Jungwoo integrates his way into Yukhei’s group of friends and begins eating lunch with them. At first, it’s very awkward because Jungwoo is Jungwoo and although he’s a nice boy, he can’t keep a conversation going with strangers if his life depended on it. But the awkward stage passes quickly and suddenly Jungwoo is a vital member of their friend group.

When Yukhei and Jungwoo finally get a chance to reschedule their sleepover, Yukhei makes sure to do it when his brother has left for a weekend field trip. Jungwoo brings a stuffed lamb with him and he hugs it tightly while they watch a horror movie in Yukhei’s room with the lights turned off. Yukhei decides to shut off the movie when Jungwoo is so afraid that he buries his face in Yukhei’s shoulder for a solid ten minutes and refuses to look at the laptop screen.

“I’m sorry,” Yukhei says, pausing the movie. “We should really stop watching this.”

“It’s fine, you can finish it,” Jungwoo says into Yukhei’s shoulder. “I’m having fun.”

“You’re scared,” Yukhei says.

“I’m not scared,” Jungwoo lies.

Yukhei finishes the rest of the movie while Jungwoo cowers behind his stuffed animal.

Jungwoo pokes Yukhei awake the next morning. “Okay, I guess I was a little scared last night,” he admits.

Yukhei laughs. “A little?”

Jungwoo rolls his eyes.

Yukhei spends the next week painfully dwelling on how Jungwoo makes him feel. His stomach feels like it’s going to invert itself and every time he closes his eyes he’s blindsided by the images of holding Jungwoo’s hand and hugging Jungwoo and traveling the world with Jungwoo. He decides that something needs to be done about this.

“Are you busy?” Yukhei asks Doyoung, who is seated in a secluded corner in the library and clearly engrossed in his economics textbook.

“Yes,” Doyoung says, not even looking up.

“Okay. Great. Well, I’m gonna ask you for advice anyway because—”

“Can this wait for another time?” Doyoung asks.

“No, not really.”

Doyoung sighs. “I have a quiz tomorrow and I don’t—”

“I have a crush on someone,” Yukhei says.

Doyoung looks up from his textbook. “You what?”

“I said I have a crush on someone,” Yukhei reiterates. “And I need your advice.”

“Who do you have a crush on?” Jungwoo suddenly asks, appearing from behind a bookcase like some kind of teleporting wizard. _Delightful_.

“I— uh, I— a girl in my… history class,” Yukhei stutters out.

“Oh, is she cute?” Jungwoo asks.

Yukhei blinks, astounded by how Jungwoo could think that would be a good question in this situation. “No,” he deadpans.

Jungwoo transforms into a giant question mark and Yukhei briefly reconsiders whether this is truly the boy whom he has developed a suffocating crush on. Jungwoo leaves after a few minutes and Doyoung waits a good minute after Jungwoo’s disappeared before finally blurting out, “You have a crush on Jungwoo, don’t you?”

Yukhei snorts. “No way.”

Doyoung slams his pencil down on the table. “Yukhei. I haven’t been friends with you for five years just to have you blatantly lie to me like this.”

Yukhei turns into a tomato. “Okay. Maybe. Is it really that obvious?”

“Unfortunately,” Doyoung says. “Watching you have a crush on someone for the very first time in your life is quite amusing. You’re practically tripping over your own limbs and it’s hilarious.”

“At least be helpful, Doyoung.”

Doyoung hums contemplatively. He also turns out to not be very helpful. He tells Yukhei that his only option is to be direct and tell Jungwoo the truth, and Yukhei is thoroughly disappointed by this response. When Yukhei expresses his disappointment, Doyoung resumes reading his textbook in silence and Yukhei leaves with a heavy sigh.

The next day, Yukhei is determined to tell Jungwoo that he has a crush on him. But just to play it safe, he rehearses in the school’s bathroom, carefully planning the words he wants to say just to make sure he doesn’t end up looking like a pathetic loser when he tells Jungwoo after school. (It doesn’t matter. He feels even more like a pathetic loser when he practices in the mirror).

Then the toilet flushes and Yukhei’s eyes bug wide open in the reflection of the mirror. Jungwoo exits the stall and washes his hands at the sink next to Yukhei.

“You gonna tell that girl in your history class that you like her?” he asks.

Yukhei gulps. “I guess.”

Jungwoo smiles and nudges him playfully with his elbow. “Good luck. You got this.”

Yukhei wants to go on a vacation to the Bermuda Triangle and disappear forever. Needless to say, he doesn’t tell Jungwoo that he likes him that day.

Yukhei spends the next few days failing to find the motivation to tell Jungwoo the truth. Feelings are hard to express, okay? He wonders if he should just text Jungwoo; that way if Jungwoo rejects him, Yukhei won’t have to be in the same room as him.

_Hey!! I kind of have a crush on you_

Yukhei backspaces the message, deciding that that would be way too sudden and straightforward. He thinks for a few more seconds and types again.

_Yo sorry if this is weird but you’re really cute and I was wondering if you would wanna go on a date sometime_

Yukhei lets out a groan in exasperation and deletes that one as well.

_Hey there! I know we’re just friends but I kind of have feelings for you and_

Yukhei doesn’t even finish typing that one.

He gives up again for another week. Yukhei drowns in his feelings and silently mopes when Jungwoo pokes him repetitively in their math class with the eraser of his pencil for no reason other than mere boredom. He’s cute. Yukhei thinks life would be a lot easier if Jungwoo could just be… less cute.

Yukhei’s motivation to express his feelings towards Jungwoo kind of flat lines after that. His heart feels like it’s going to explode in Jungwoo’s presence, but he forces himself to put on his best neutral expressions.

But then one afternoon after school, Yukhei’s walking to his car in the parking lot when he spots Jungwoo sitting on a bench underneath one of the trees in the schoolyard with his face buried in his hands. Yukhei runs over immediately only to realize that Jungwoo has dissolved into a puddle of tears and everything is a disaster.

Turns out Jungwoo’s having some sort of midlife crisis. In high school. He barely manages to tell Yukhei the situation — that his advisor had asked him what he planned on doing after graduation and his mind went haywire overthinking the question because he doesn’t know whether he wants to go to university, and he doesn’t know which career he wants to pursue, and the confusion is overwhelming. Yukhei wraps him into a hug and Jungwoo’s tears soak into the fabric of his t-shirt. Yukhei assures him that he doesn’t need to make any hasty decisions at this age and Jungwoo responds with more tears.

Yukhei takes Jungwoo out to get ice cream as a distraction. Yukhei also shows him shitty memes to help him calm down and he brings Jungwoo back to his house later that evening. They watch Zootopia together on Yukhei’s bed and Jungwoo rests his head on Yukhei’s shoulder. After the movie ends, Yukhei asks Jungwoo if he’s feeling better and Jungwoo looks up at him with puffy eyes and a red nose and says yes. Yukhei teases him for it, deeming him Rudolph’s Cousin, and Jungwoo laughs so hard that Yukhei fears that he might burst a blood vessel.

Jungwoo apologizes for “being such a disaster” and Yukhei tells him that he’s not a disaster and that he doesn’t mind doing this.

“Enough about me,” Jungwoo suddenly decides, playfully poking Yukhei in the ribs. “How’s your life been? Did you ever tell that girl in your history class that you like her?”

Yukhei wants to lie again. It would be much easier to just tell Jungwoo that the imaginary girl rejected him.

“Yeah. About that,” Yukhei mumbles. “There isn’t a girl. I kinda lied.”

Jungwoo frowns. “That’s a weird thing to lie about.”

Yukhei wants to scream.

“So this is probably gonna make things incredibly awkward,” Yukhei begins calmly, feeling his face heating up. Jungwoo is still leaning against Yukhei, who feels like he might burst into flames at any second. “But I…” Jungwoo smiles and his red nose looks _so funny_ and Yukhei really can’t do it. “I feel like I’m the only person on the planet who doesn’t like smoothies and I really needed to get this off my chest.”

Jungwoo narrows his eyes. “You don’t like smoothies? How is that supposed to make things awkward?”

“Well, if it doesn’t make things awkward, then I’m sorry to disappoint,” Yukhei amends teasingly.

Jungwoo looks completely lost.

“I like you,” Yukhei admits sheepishly.

Jungwoo laughs, and— Yukhei is offended?

“I’m— I’m serious,” Yukhei says. “I really like you. Like, I think you’re really cute.”

Jungwoo’s laughter fades. He looks up at Yukhei. “What? Really?”

Yukhei nods nervously.

“Oh, okay,” Jungwoo says. He doesn’t look confused, but rather shocked. “Are you being serious?”

Yukhei nods again.

“Well, I like you too,” Jungwoo replies calmly.

Yukhei shakes his head. “No, I mean. I _really_ like you. I wanna date you.”

“Yeah,” Jungwoo says. “Me too. Well, not me too. But like, I wanna date you too.”

“No way,” Yukhei says.

Jungwoo tilts his head. “Yes way.”

Yukhei and Jungwoo continue to be friends. They continue to not pay attention in math class and Jungwoo continues to doodle on the edges of Yukhei’s notes. They continue to have sleepovers and they continue to watch movies together.

But now, Yukhei gets to call Jungwoo his boyfriend.

**Author's Note:**

> wow i'm literally jungwoo in this fic: doesn't pay a seed of attention in math class and has breakdowns over what to do with my future
> 
> here's a link to my listo in which i greatly overshare: [[x]](https://listography.com/gigglyjaehyun)


End file.
